Britain, Gestapo Invasion Arrest List 1940

With each result, you will find a transcript and an image of the original list. The amount of information you will see will vary. As the records have been recorded in German they can be difficult to decipher. The transcript will include a combination of the following facts:

• First name(s)

• Last name

• Title

• Birth year

• Birth date

• Year

• Number

After the fall of France in May 1940, the German Gestapo prepared for the invasion of Britain by compiling an arrest list of more than 2,300 names.

The list includes most major figures in the British political establishment, Winston Churchill and Neville Chamberlain.

There are also prominent cultural figures and refugees who had fled the continent ahead of the Nazis. Among those slated for arrest were Lady Astor, Noel Coward, Virginia Woolf, H. G. Wells, Sidney Reilly, Heinrich Mann, Chaim Weizmann, Edvard Benes, Aldous Huxley, and Charles de Gaulle.

This is one of the rare surviving copies, it is numbered 354 and stamped "Geheim" (Secret), and has a handwritten title "Gestapo Arrest List for England."

These records were prepared in advance of their anticipated invasion and occupation of mainland Britain. An occupation never came to pass, but these record give a unique insight into an alternative history that could have been.

If you are unable to find a record on your first search you can try including a name variant. Entries were spelt incorrectly or Germanised, the spelling of names can differ.